To date, Xu Han has hatched a total of 164 chicks. Currently, 120 chicks are free-range in the orchard, while the others are still too small and are being kept at home for the time being. They will be released into the orchard to roam freely when they are older.
Chicks that are too small will have a low survival rate if left unattended in the orchard. Once they are older and can eat on their own, they will not require much extra care.
As for the hatched ducks, Xu Han asked Lu Chuan to help her fence off a space downstream of the stream, where they would be kept temporarily. She wouldn't go home at night, and her dog would watch over them.
From then on, the dogs in the house finally had something to do. After all these years of raising them, they hadn't been eating for nothing.
In recent years, Lu Chuan has not gone hunting in the mountains much, and his dogs have done nothing but guard the house.
It's such a waste to have such a good hunting dog, and now the dogs are doing their part for this family.
The dogs especially love this job and will even compete to do it.
Of course, letting them watch over the livestock wasn't a constant task. During the day, when few small animals came to the area, Xu Han would open the gate and let them roam freely, taking a stroll around the neighborhood.
When it's mealtime, they come back to eat on their own, and at night the dogs take turns staying there.
This wasn't a schedule arranged by Xu Han. They are all very intelligent. Ever since Lu Chuan took the dogs there a few times at night, they started running over on their own every time it got dark.
At first, only Maodou and the others would go to the orchard, but later the other dogs saw this and would follow them.
However, Black Dot and Black Wind never spent the night there.
Even if they go out for a while after dinner, when it's time to sleep, Black Wind and Black Spot will pry at the door, asking Lu Chuan to open it for them.
Xu Han thought that the two dogs were probably worried about their owners at home. They were worried about the children being out, but they were also uneasy without the dogs at home.
Time passed day by day, and one day Xu Han suddenly discovered something surprising: after many years, Hei Dian was pregnant again.
Having learned from her previous experience, Xu Han noticed the black mark as soon as she became pregnant this time.
However, Xu Han was afraid that something might happen to Hei Dian again, so she was extra careful and took better care of Hei Dian in her daily life.
When the rest of the family found out, they took extra care of Heidian. Even Mu'er knew to save her own food to share with Heidian, just so that Heidian could get some nutrition.
Ze'er followed suit. Although he couldn't understand what his mother meant by the puppy in Heidian's belly, it didn't stop him from taking care of Heidian just like his brother.
Children have a strong ability to imitate, which Xu Han is happy to see.
Time flies, and it's already April. During this time, everyone has been busy with their own tasks in an orderly manner.
There wasn't much to do in the fields; besides the daily weeding and planting of vegetables, there wasn't much else to do.
After a year of growth, the fruit trees in the orchard have blossomed, and as time goes by, the fruits are slowly growing larger.
After breakfast that morning, Xu Han took Lu Chuan to the orchard to thin the fruit on the trees.
Lu Chuan expressed his incomprehension regarding the decision to pick the perfectly ripe fruit. "It's such a waste to pick such good fruit. Can't we just leave it growing like this?"
While thinning the fruit, Xu Han patiently explained to Lu Chuan, "It's not good if too many fruits grow. They won't get enough nutrition, and the fruits will be small and not tasty."
Seeing that Lu Chuan still didn't quite understand, Xu Han patiently explained, "It's like a sow giving birth to 10 piglets and 2 piglets. The sow's milk is definitely not enough for 10 piglets, so the piglets are all very small and look malnourished."
But if there are two piglets, then those two piglets will have milk to drink, and the mother sow will provide them with all the nutrients, so those two piglets will definitely grow fat and plump.
After Xu Han explained it to him, Lu Chuan immediately understood. In order to be able to eat big and sweet fruit, he no longer felt bad about wasting money when thinning the fruit.
The couple spent a whole day thinning out all the fruit trees in the orchard.
Some fruit trees were tall, so Lu Chuan would climb up the trees to try to thin out all the fruit in all areas, so that the fruit would be of uniform size and taste better.
However, these fruit trees were all planted last year and are not very old. In addition, Xu Han had pruned them in the winter, so none of these fruit trees grew very tall. On the contrary, they had many fruiting branches.
When the couple returned from thinning the fruit in the late afternoon, Lu Chuan mentioned, "These fruits are at the stage of growing taller. Tomorrow, the Taoist priest and I will go and fetch some more manure to fertilize the fruit trees."
"Yes, it's time to fertilize them. By the way, the chickens in the orchard are getting bigger and bigger. We should raise more earthworms this year and feed them more earthworms. The chickens will grow faster and lay more eggs."
Lu Chuan helped Xu Han down the hillside. "That's easy. There are lots of earthworms in the manure, and they're all super fat. We can just catch some and raise them separately."
Xu Han smiled and took Lu Chuan's arm. "Then I'll leave this matter to you."
Lu Chuan was particularly pleased with Xu Han's gesture. He patted his chest and said, "Don't worry about it, leave it to me. I guarantee I'll handle it perfectly."
The two chatted and laughed all the way home and soon arrived back.
As soon as they entered the courtyard, Mu'er excitedly called out to the two of them, "Daddy, Mommy. Grandpa Zhao said Heidian is going to have a baby."
The two exchanged a glance upon hearing this and quickly walked in. "Where's the black spot?"
"It's in the backyard, I'll take you there."
After Mu'er finished speaking, she grabbed Xu Han's hand and quickly ran to the backyard.
When the three arrived, Grandpa Zhao had already prepared soft straw for Black Spot, and laid a layer of old clothes on top of it.
The black spots on the straw were whimpering and seemed to be in great pain.
Lu Chuan asked, "How is it? Is the black spot about to give birth?"
While cleaning up around the black spot, Grandpa Zhao replied to Lu Chuan, "She's about to give birth. Although these years have been plagued by natural disasters, the black spot has a very good constitution and there shouldn't be any major problems."
Xu Han looked around at the black dot and said, "That's good. Judging from the black dot's belly, she'll probably have quite a few babies this time."
Lu Chuan said with a smile, "Last time she gave birth to four in one litter, and they all survived. Judging from her belly, she should have about three or four more."
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